


PRELUDE

by Starcrossedsky



Series: soon under the stars we will meet again [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Changeling AU, Other, World of darkness AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 01:54:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15741747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: A hero, a villain, and a girl with a ring -Well, it gives a whole new meaning to break-out actors, doesn't it?(This isn't Act One. This is the story before the story.)





	PRELUDE

**Author's Note:**

> So if you aren't familiar with Changeling: the Lost, a thirty second primer: Changelings are people kidnapped by the True Fae to the Faerie Realms, who manage to make their way back to reality. The True Fae (or Keepers) do lots of different, Pretty Terrible things to them in Faerie, unique to each Keeper; in this case, forcing them to act out scripts for entertainment with some fae magic blended in.
> 
> There's a lot of other shit going on, but since this is the story of the _escape_ , Please Look Forward To It. (nai do you really need another wip) (shhh)

The first cycle, you are young, too young, and the sword feels awkward in your hands, and you believe it real. The man with yellow eyes tilts his head, his hand around the neck of the beautiful girl - 

You shift your shaky grip on the sword, and charge. Black blood seeps from where you've run him through. The girl twists free, tucks her hand into yours - 

You think it's real, as he laughs and vanishes into a cloud of black smoke.

You're sixteen, the first time you kill him.

He says, "See you soon."

\----

By the third time, you start to realize that the sword in your hand feels like it belongs there.

By the fifth time, you start to realize that the girl isn't really in any danger. The man with the yellow eyes never does more than scratch at her skin, leaving long red marks, tears in her (white, always white) dresses. Around her neck hangs - a pendant? a ring? - something you can't let the man with yellow eyes have, or you'll fail.

You don't know what happens to heroes fail. If nothing else, you're desperate to not find out. 

(For all that it's his goal, you never see him touch it.)

The sixth time, you whisper, "See you next time," to him, as he turns to smoke on the end of your sword.

\----

The ninth time, the girl wraps her arms around your shoulders. You are older, now, maybe eighteen, maybe more, it's so hard to tell. 

She's older, too. Old enough that you can't really call her a girl anymore.

She kisses your cheek, this time, before you wake up, into another dream, and the cycle starts again.

\----

He has so many names, a different one each time. An evil advisor, a mad scientist, so many roles, the sweeping gestures of his arms, the deep boom of his voice at that exact moment when he reveals himself as the villain. A power so far beyond yours, beyond your sword and your magic - 

Her name is always 'Stella.'

Except, the twelfth time, as she's being taken away, dragged with her wrist in his hands, she says, "I'll tell you my real name - I promise!"

And for the first time, the man's acting slips, his face twisting with pain, and he leans in to whisper something in her ear - 

"Don't."

"Don't give Him any more power over you than He already has."

\----

That's when you realize

that you need saving as much as she does

and so does he.

\----

The thirteenth time, you charge in close when you put your blade through him, and you whisper into his ear, "Escape with us."

His answer, whispered back, "Oh, hero. If only I could."

\----

The fifteenth time, you know, that it's now or never - 

Your magic is teleportation, this time, not just fire and ice and swords, and you throw, throw _yourself_ \- 

He has his hands around her, some dark parody of an embrace, and you know you're only going to get that one chance.

\- and your arms close around the both of them, her white dress, his faded-to-grey coat, and you whisper, "Hold on," as you twist to throw yourself again - 

He's cold, and his yellow eyes are wide. She's warm, and her blue ones are determined.

They hold on.

\----

Reality rips open, and then closed, around you. And there are still arms around your shoulders. And you are - 

"Backstage," the man whispers into your hair. "I haven't been here in a long time."

It's quiet, for him, gently surprised. The actor, not the villain. 

"We're not out yet," you say, more of a guess, but he nods.

"It's farther than most get, after they realize," he says, and he doesn't drop his arms away. "I'm sorry. I really did like the two of you. You never made it messier than it had to be."

"Don't," she says, reaching around you to put her hand over his. "You're coming with us."

"He won't let you. There's always more heroes, more damsels. I've seen more of them than you can imagine."

"Sure," you say, leaning close to him. His eyes are starting to well up, with black tears or maybe black blood. "But what do you have to lose by trying?"

He blinks at you for a moment, then looks away, pulling out of your embrace. "...There was something once," he says. "Something I had to protect. But I don't remember anymore."

You look at the girl, and the two of you nod to each other before each of you takes one of his hands.

"There's no story without the villain," she says.

"Let's go," you say, and maybe, just maybe, he smiles.

\----

Backstage is a maze and you are the rats, taking everything you can carry. There are weapons, so many weapons, and your villain does something with the fold of space around him to tuck them into his coat. Your damsel keeps a trident, long and wicked, and you keep your sword, and he has more pockets than he has names. And there are costumes, and effects, and - 

Stage hands, twisted things, moving props and lighting with empty eyes. And when your villain sees them the first time, he freezes, and draws a sword from his coat.

"Death backstage is real," he says. "Remember that. And remember what happens to heroes who fail."

It is cruel mercy, but you have cut him down so many times that the blood of your predecessors on your sword, black as his is, doesn't even make you flinch.

Not one of them resists. If anything, their twisted faces almost smile.

"How long till the audience notices we're missing?" you ask.

"Not nearly long enough," he says. "I told you, you're not the first." His expression is grim, but while he shakes black blood from his sword (you've seen that one before, ridiculously too large to be used one-handed, that he swings without a care), he doesn't put it away.

It occurs to you to ask if he's ever tried to help any of the others, or if he stopped them. You quash it down, because you have to trust him, have to -

"To my knowledge," he continues, "there's not a way out, even from here."

You don't let your heart sink, either. "There's got to be a way," you say. "If we got put in here, we can get out, right?"

The man doesn't answer. The girl, leaning on a trident she picked up from a wall of props, starts playing with the pendant still around her neck. It's definitely a ring, now that you can see it clearly, now that you can _think_ clearly instead of through the haze of the stage.

"What if..." she starts, stops, looks up. "What if it's not an _exit_?"

The man turns to her, and you're putting your whole focus on her, too.

"What if it's something we've had the whole time?" she says, her hand tightening around the ring, and you see the exact realization echoed in the man's yellow eyes.

"That ring... It's always the same," he says, eyes narrowing. "Even before you two. Perhaps before me."

"Then..." You step closer, frowning, to get a good look at it. It's black and heavy, sized for a man's hand, and the girl pulls it free of her neck, the chain catching briefly on her blond hair. "Does it really have power in it? Or is it just a prop?"

"It's very real," the man says, without hesitation. "Those who put it on are consumed in flames. I've seen it do in lesser villains a number of times."

You and the girl meet eyes, both blue, and nod to each other. "What if we destroyed it?" she asks the man in the coat.

"We'd likely die," he answers, but he doesn't sound as afraid as he did before.

"What have we got to lose?" you say. "Put it on the ground."

She nods and does so, almost reverently, and - you can't entirely blame her. She's carried it for... how many years now?

Her white dress is as dusty as the man's coat when she stands again, faded brown-grey across the knees. Then she lifts the trident in her other hand, turning it over and pointing the tines down at the ring.

You step closer, nodding to the man across from you, and point your sword downward against the trident. "On three?" you say.

"On three," he agrees, angling the greatsword at the ring as well. Then he takes a deep breath, and his voice is the deep, even tone that's grown so familiar to you. "One..." 

"Two..." Her voice doesn't shake, either.

You can't be sure if the third voice is yours, or his, or hers. Maybe it's all of yours.

" _THREE - !_ "

You slam your sword down, and something ripstears _shatters_ into light - 

\----

When you wake, you're staring up at the stars. They're not the unmoving stars of the stage, that glittered with only reflected light. They expand outwards, endlessly, undistorted but too dim to be perfect.

The stage never had _light pollution._ You sit up, ready to point it out to the others, and then glance around in a panic, because _what if they're not there_ \- 

They are, though. The girl is still unconscious, her trident tossed carelessly beside her, her dress torn by the force of the ring's burst, her her loose except for one small braid. The man is awake, sitting up much the same as you, his greatsword tossed alongside the trident, at an angle to you.

He's staring at the lights further out. You stand, to go over to him, and your breath catches in your throat. Because beyond him, you can see - 

It's a city. It's _your_ city, the view dragging up a painful nostalgia that you can barely remember, a memory of sitting up here with your father and - 

"We're really back," you say. "Aren't we?"

When did you start crying?

The man jerks like he's surprised to hear your voice. There's still something uncanny about his eyes, almost glowing yellow in the dark. "I think we may," he says. "Unless it's some new and more awful stage."

"Good enough for me," you say, sprawling out on the grass to lean against his side. You're... tired, so tired. He twitches under your weight, but then, almost hesitantly, wraps an arm around your side. The wool of his coat itches a little, but it's better than the night air, and you curl closer.

"You got a name?" you say finally, once you're settled in. "Like, it doesn't have to be your real one, just - "

"Ardyn."

The interruption surprises you into falling silent. "...Noctis," you say, at some length.

"Lunafreya," comes the girls' voice, and you lean around Ardyn to look at her. She's sitting halfway up, tucking a bit of her hair behind her ear. "My mother used to call me Luna."

"Luna," you repeat, looking up at the sky. There's no moon visible tonight. There was always a moon in the other place, a still crescent that sometimes flipped but never changed.

She stands and comes around to sit on your other side. She's left her heels next to her trident; her feet are bare in the grass.

"We're really free," she says.

"Yeah," you agree. 

Ardyn lifts his arm from your shoulders, pulling his thick coat off. The dress shirt underneath is patched and worn, run through too many times and stitched back together, just like him. He slings the coat over you so that it wraps around Luna as well, keeping all three of you warm. 

"The question now," he says, "is where to go from here."

You look at him, at the way his eyes are too-bright yellow in too-dark grey still. At Luna, whose face glows like the moon, a subtle thing you'd never notice if you weren't already looking. You wonder what they see when they look at you.

"...Worry about it in the morning," you say, pulling them both closer under the folds of the coat. "For right now, let's get some sleep."

And curled up between them, you do.


End file.
